“Levelling up will be dead,” Andy Burnham told Sky News this week regarding the prospect of Rishi Sunak being elected leader of the Conservative party. As the candidates jockeyed for position commentators have intermittently asked which – if any – of them might be prepared to find the fortunes required to return the regions to some kind of parity with the Republic of London.
That is to miss the real problem, though, of course – inequality is merely a symptom of a deeper sickness.
For while we may congratulate the original eight (Sunak, Morduant, Tugendhat, Truss, Braverman, Hunt, Badenoch and Zahawi) on their collective gender and race diversity (four women, four men, four white, four BAME) we can surely only despair at the brazen offensiveness of their regional bias.
Among them only one (Truss) grew up in the north (Leeds) while of the other seven none were raised north of the M25 (specifically Hampshire, Hampshire, London, London, Surrey, London and London), only one represents a northern constituency (Hampshire boy Sunak in Richmond, Yorks) while his fellow candidates all moisten seats south of Birmingham (specifically Portsmouth North, Tonbridge and Malling, South West Norfolk, Fareham, South West Surrey, Saffron Walden and Stratford on Avon). 
Precisely none of them attended university in the North (in turn Oxford, Reading, Bristol, Oxford, Cambridge, Oxford, Sussex and UCL).
How much does it matter? It’s the root of the problem. It precedes the economic apartheid and demonstrates with unrivalled clarity that along the corridors or power northern-ness is a stigma to be sidestepped. To the candidates in the Tory leadership election the North is merely a place they’ve visited, about which they require a soundbite and perhaps a policy label.
Only when that stigma has been erased will there be the faintest chance of us ever levelling up.
Hear, hear
Unlikely to be winning any charm awards this week is Working Men’s Club front man Syd Minsky-Sergeant, who marked the release of his band’s new album Fear Fear (Heavenly) by underlining his bandmates’ lack of contribution to it. “No one else plays on the record,” he told The Skinny. “Not to be dismissive of the band because they inspire me in other walks of life, but the recording process is just me.”
“And not on drums…” then etc. It’s a different line-up to the one which made the first album, mind (“There are people high up on the credits of that record that I fucking hate now…I’d smash their face in if I saw them”) and the power struggle is said to have 
extended to managementy level. But as the youthful Todmordian strives to assert control of his group, and Manchester looks to its BIMM graduates for signs of life in the rock band format, even this famous music city is apparently on notice not to claim the twenty-one-year-old as its own. “The heritage in Manchester is overwhelming, which is why the music is so bland there,” he’s on record as saying.
To cop a load of Fear Fear, with its synth pop stylings, dystopian themery and doomy doubletracky post-punk vox (Ian Curtis sings early Human League odes to death, covid and decline) is to be struck by a talent young enough to be Messianic, dark enough to stand out and out-of-sorts enough to want be heard above the deafening cultural hum. Are the tunes there? Certainly lead single Widow and closer The Last One exert an undertow which make you want to hit Repeat. It’s difficult – and of course unfair – to comment on the singer’s relationships with his scarves-and-water-bringers, but with the gatekeepers high on the hog in this town, he’s at least right about that blandness he feels he’s at war with.
Big Karen sustenance
A conspicuously thoughtful piece in Confidential this week about the new meme-themed diner Karen’s just opened in Prestwich…if one of their ads hasn’t shit in your retinas in recently then it won’t be long. To the uninitiated, Karen’s a new burger chain which popped up in Australia last year inspired by the big-haired blonde meme queen who “wants to speak to the manager”. “Our staff are rude, our manners are non-existent and we’re the perfect place for Karen’s every-where to vent their anger,” they say. “Come on, ask for the manager…we dare you.” Cue Insta ads full of staff making wanker gestures in customers faces and bewildered grandpas having their birthday meals dropped in front of them before sniggering family members.
You can see why it might touch a nerve with Manchester’s best loved foodie website: it’s a chilling model of post-pandemic economics. Exploiting the proliferation of cheap retail space it marries two phenomena of our time to still have their heads just about above water: pop-up culture and social media. At Karen’s, the product itself – the food – isn’t really the point, and neither is the restaurant. It exists largely as a backdrop for 
videophone content intended to drive customers through the doors in order to generate more content. “I shouldn’t have to write this but Karen’s is not my cup of tea,” wrote Confidential’s designated pearl-clutcher, Davey Brett. “Representatives of Manchester Confidential visited it this week and if you asked them if they would go back they would politely say no thank you.” Having been told to fuck off back to caviarland first, of course.
Having braved it on a Friday night – alone, which wasn’t wise – I’m inclined to agree with the experts. There are only so many artful put-downs which can be dispensed in a ten-hour shift. After that it’s just witless abuse. It will appeal to beered-up parties and bants-seekers but the food isn’t special and that thrifted charm of the best pop-up spaces isn’t really in evidence. Why would Karen run a 50s diner anyway? It doesn’t make sense.
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